My local paper was sold to Gannett (USA Today) a few years ago. It's a complete shadow of what it used to be (to be fair the decline started long before the sale, as with many local papers). They are down from a full newsroom to a handul of local reporters, I'm not even sure all of them are full-time. Most of their content is just USA today stories or news from other Gannett papers.
There are a couple of bloggers who cover local government, otherwise there's really no in-depth local reporting on anything anymore.
I can't speak for every local but the "local paper" where I live is effectively the RSS feeds of the local CBS & NBC news stations' websites and the reporting is actually quite good, or at least, it's a LOT better than receiving no local reporting.
The actual local paper is as you describe. I don't understand why local TV has weathered the digital transition better, exactly, but I find that I get a LOT of the local coverage that I want this way and I'm eager to recommend this to strategy to others (as you can see)
CNN is the most popular news website in the US by a huge margin and they are confident enough in their position that they're going to start testing out a paywall next month.